In Dog We Trust (Golden Retriever Mysteries)

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “More animals,” Tasheba mimicked. In a low voice she said, “He’s such a turkey you could stuff him and eat him for Thanksgiving.” Dionne and Dianne giggled.

  Menno glared at her. Open war seemed to have broken out between them, though I wasn’t sure why. The class had started to take sides. Melissa Macaretti was in Menno’s camp, while two of the three Jeremys sided with Tasheba (the third was neutral, sort of like Switzerland, if Switzerland’s neutrality was based more on lack of interest than on any philosophical basis.)

  Before either Tasheba or Menno pulled out any weapons, I dismissed the class. “Email me or call my cell if you have questions,” I said, as they were all packing up to leave. Candy Kane had already told me in no uncertain terms that she was not my secretary, and any students who wanted me had to call me directly. “I want three pages, typed, double-spaced, next Monday. And I know all about super-sized fonts and big margins, so don’t try and pull any crap.”

  That wouldn’t stop them, but it was always good to get that information on the table. As Tasheba was walking out, I asked her how Romeo was doing.

  “I can’t bring him to school any more,” she said. “That’s why I was late. Security was waiting on me outside. They told me someone had complained, and I couldn’t bring Romeo to class, even if you didn’t mind. So I had to take him back to my house.” She sneered. “I bet it was Farmer Boy, with his stupid beard. He doesn’t want to mess with me.”

  I nodded. I didn’t want to mess with Tasheba, either.

  I met up with Jackie at her office, on my way to the faculty lounge. “I got this idea from this sign I saw the other day,” she said, holding up her Polaroid camera. “You know, those ‘George Washington slept here’ signs. I’m going to take pictures of every student who falls asleep in my class, and post them around the room, with signs like ‘Araly Fernandez Slept Here’ or ‘George Chu Slept Here.’”

  We walked into the lounge and set about making our drinks. “Hey, I baked some biscuits for Samson,” she said. “And I brought some in for your new dog.” She handed me a baggie with a half-dozen cookies shaped like dog bones.

  “Thanks. I’m sure he’ll appreciate them.”

  Jackie was on a roll that morning, making catty remarks about the rest of the full-time faculty and about administrators I only knew by name. I could see why other professors sometimes called her “The Blair Witch” behind her back. She may have been petite and under thirty, but her personality was as large as if she’d been teaching for decades.

  On my way to the parking lot, in quick succession, I saw students wearing t-shirts which read, “Save the whales. Collect the whole set,” “Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now,” and “Half the people you know are below average.” Typical for the Eastern student body.

  I took my time driving home, with the windows wide open for the first time since late fall. It was pretty cold, but if I went slowly enough the cool breeze was more like the opening of a refrigerator than an Arctic blast.

  It had been a rough couple of weeks, between Caroline’s death and Rochester’s arrival in my life, topped off with the ungrammatical rantings of privileged undergraduates who’ve been brought up to believe their thoughts matter, even when they ignore all the rules of punctuation. It was nice to snatch a few minutes to myself, rolling down River Road with the Delaware on my left and a series of wooded hills and fallow fields on my right. For long stretches, the Beemer was the only car on the road, and I took joy in the burgeoning nature around me.

  It’s another world out there along the river. Pine, blue spruce and fir gather in clusters, holding remnants of the frequent winter snows in their branches. You can drive for a mile or two without seeing a house or driveway, past the abandoned quarry and the flat piece of land, now overgrown with weeds and saplings, where there used to be a child-sized railway train my parents took me on.

  Years of traveling that road, as a kid, a teenager and a college student, had given me intimate knowledge of its twists and turns. I remembered where the high school late bus had stopped, and which road you took to get to the ruined mansion, called Xanadu, which my buddies and I had explored on a dare in eleventh grade.

  A mile or so north of Stewart’s Crossing, traffic slowed, and as we crept forward I saw flashing red and blue lights and a Mini Cooper that had run off the road and perched halfway down the slope to the Delaware, butted up against the trunk of a weeping willow.

  The road there was narrow, with no shoulder to speak of, and accidents were common. An ambulance appeared from behind me, and the cars in the southbound lane moved over to the right, hugging the stone wall built during the Depression by the WPA. I remembered the last time I’d seen Fire Rescue; they had come to take away Caroline’s body. I wondered if Rick had made any progress in finding her killer.

  Traffic moved again, and I didn’t get to see how fast the EMTs moved, whether the occupant of the Mini Cooper could be saved or not. But when I got home, I made sure to pet Rochester and even let him lick my face.

  Responses began coming in to the queries I’d sent out soliciting freelance work, and I was pleased to learn I’d been given two small jobs. Neither paid much, but they added to my client roster, and there was always the hope that if they liked what I did, they’d give me more work. Santos would be pleased. Of course, I had to sandwich that work in between preparing for classes, grading papers, and taking care of Rochester.

  As we walked the next morning, I realized that I was getting to know him more every day. He had a bunch of habits which were starting to emerge, the more he got comfortable with me. The one I found most annoying was the way he seemed to like an audience when he pooped.

  There was no other way to explain it. We’d walk past six houses in a row—closed up, no cars in the driveway, no lights in the window. Then there’d be one where a woman was unloading groceries from her minivan, or a guy had the hood up on his Mustang, or a kid was playing in the front yard. That’s where Rochester would scoot his hind legs up and squat.

  Usually I was paying attention and I dragged him onward. I didn’t want anybody to complain about me letting my dog poop in their yard, even if I was cleaning it up. Every now and then, though, I’d be thinking about something, or I’d get in conversation with some kid who wanted to pet the dog, and when I’d look down there he’d be, turds popping out of his butt.

  By inheriting Rochester, I’d turned into a kid magnet. Before he arrived, I’d never talked to a single child—and yet once I was walking a big, happy golden retriever, every kid on the street was saying hi and asking to pet him.

  It’s not that I don’t like kids. I was a kid once myself. And the students I teach are barely out of childhood. But if you say no, then the kids think you’re some kind of meanie. And saying yes means reining Rochester in, getting him to sit so he doesn’t overwhelm some three-foot munchkin. It’s just a hassle.

  Sometimes I long for those quiet, peaceful, dog- and kid-free walks I used to be able to take. And then Rochester will stick his big shaggy head in my face as I’m lying on the sofa, or try to climb over me in the bed like I’m an obstruction in the roadway, and I start to laugh.

  I drove up to Eastern, and was there early enough that I stopped by Jackie’s office just before my mystery fiction class. “Did Rochester like the biscuits I sent him?” she asked.

  “Absolutely. I had to put the rest of them up on top of the refrigerator or he’d have eaten them all at once.”

  “You can always give him one after you brush his teeth, as a reward,” she said. “You have been brushing his teeth, haven’t you? You have to brush them every couple of days and clip his toenails.”

  “Do I look like a dog beautician?” I asked.

  “A dog’s breakfast? Only in that shirt.”

  “What’s wrong with this shirt?” I was wearing one of my collection of vintage rock T-shirts—a collection I had assembled at thrift shops all around the Bay area, much to the evil ex-wife’s dismay. I think I
kept the collection going just because it irritated her so much.

  “Nothing, if you’re on your way to a Stones concert,” Jackie said.

  I started to strum my air guitar, pursing my lips and strutting.

  “Please, not Mick Jagger,” she said, holding her fingers up in front of me in the shape of a cross. “At least not before I’ve had my coffee.”

  “Seriously, I have to brush his teeth?”

  “Or take him to the vet,” she said. “That dog is like your child now. It’s up to you to take care of him.”

  That was an interesting thought. Even when Mary and I were recovering from the effects of her first miscarriage, discussing cats and kids, I’d never considered that having a pet could be like a kid for the childless.

  But then, I stopped at the pet shop that day on my way home from school to replenish Rochester’s food, and got sidetracked by the display of rubber chew and squeaky toys.

  I found myself picking up squeaky fire hydrants and plastic chew toys shaped like the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. “So cute!” escaped my lips, and I looked around to make sure no one had heard me.

  “What kind of dog do you have?” the clerk asked me, as I wheeled my wagon, laded with an industrial-sized bag of dog food, mailbox-shaped treats flavored with pumpkin, liver toothpaste, and a guillotine-like implement for trimming Rochester’s toenails.

  It took me a minute to answer. Even though I had a cart full of doggie products, I still hadn’t connected myself as Rochester’s owner. More like I’d been running a bed-and-breakfast for orphaned dogs.

  “Golden retriever,” I finally said.

  “They’re so sweet,” she said. “Does yours slobber?”

  “Like the Delaware,” I said. We chatted and laughed as she rang me up. With what I spent, I could have sponsored a couple of African orphans, but I handed over my credit card in good spirits.

  Coming home that evening, I noticed a For Sale sign on Caroline’s front lawn, another reminder of what had happened to her. Rick had made no real progress in finding her killer, and the case was in danger of going unsolved. It made me sad—but then when I let Rochester out of his crate, he nearly did a somersault in his excitement, and who can stay sad in the face of a greeting like that?

  That night, I tried to put into practice the things Jackie had told me I had to do for Rochester—brushing his teeth, trimming his nails and so on. He wasn’t into the health aspect of teeth cleaning, nail clipping and brushing. He thought everything I tried was a fun new game. Instead of having his teeth brushed, he wanted to play hide-the-head in the sofa pillows. When I grabbed one paw to examine his nails, he used another to whomp away at whatever body part of mine was closest.

  And when I tried to brush him, he attempted to scoot under the kitchen table, reappearing as soon as I pulled the brush away. It was just a barrel of laughs. We spent the evening hanging out—me avoiding grading papers and doing client work, him just hanging out being spoiled.

  Rochester was changing my life almost without my conscious action. I found myself rushing through my grading to have more time hanging out with him, hurrying home after I finished teaching instead of lingering, so that I could be sure he got out to pee. Caroline’s memory came to me in odd moments—driving past the spot where she had been killed, playing with Rochester, coming home with a raspberry mocha in my hand. She was dead, and I was living her life, in a way. It was a sobering thought.

  Chapter 11 – Quaker State Bank

  When my mother died, I discovered that my father had become a few bricks shy of a load, to use one of his own expressions. I told my friends that his brain had fallen and couldn't get up, and I felt that way about some of my students at Eastern, too. Sometimes, they were witty, like the girl who once announced in class, “I always hold on to my ex-boyfriends. Or at least their remains.”

  On Wednesday after freshman comp, I overheard a guy say to his friend, “Dude, I am so over that word of the day toilet paper of yours.”

  Then as I was on my way to my car, a stocky guy in a Napoleon Dynamite t-shirt, the kind that says ‘Vote for Pedro,’ said, “I’m writing my history paper on Nelson Mandela.”

  His buddy was built like a wrestler, short and squat. He asked “The dude who hosts Deal or No Deal?”

  A third guy walking with them, the preppy type in a polo shirt with the collar turned up, snorted. “No that’s Howie Mandel. Nelson Mandela was the butler on Ozzie and Harriet.”

  The wrestler said, “Dude, Ozzie is married to Sharon, not Harriet. Harriet’s like one of those dogs that’s always crapping around the house.”

  The ‘Vote for Pedro’ guy, who probably had never voted in his life, except for “Most Likely to Have the Best Dope at a Party,” said, “You guys are so lame. Nelson Mandela is like the George Washington Carver of Africa. We studied him in high school during Black History Month.”

  I was shaking my head over that when I ran into Edith Passis at the faculty parking lot, and it was such a surprise to see her somewhere other than The Chocolate Ear that I almost didn’t recognize her. Though it was early April, it was a cold, bright, blustery day, and Edith was wrapped up in a knee-length wool coat, her white hair covered in a matching tweedy cap. She had black leather gloves on her hands, and big plastic sunglasses over her face. She looked like Greta Garbo on her way to the grocery store.

  I remembered that Edith tutored advanced piano students in Eastern’s musicology program. “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m hoping the winter is behind us. I get so afraid of driving in ice and snow.”

  “I know how you feel.” We chatted for a couple of minutes, and soon enough the topic of Caroline Kelly came up.

  “The poor thing,” Edith said. “She told me she was getting close to figuring out what was going wrong with my money.” She shifted her pocketbook to one arm so she could pull off her leather gloves. The gesture reminded me of my mother, and a wave of memory hit me, missing her and my father as much as I ever had.

  “But I never did get the chance to sit down with her and find out,” Edith continued. “And I gave her all my paperwork, too.”

  “Ginny hired a cleaning service to box up all Caroline’s stuff, and she’s storing it in my garage.” I loosened my scarf as I warmed up standing in the sun. “I can take a look through what I’ve got and see if I can find that paperwork for you.”

  “Would you, Steve? At least then I can find someone else to help me. Right now I just don’t know what to do.”

  “After all the torment I put you through with three years of piano lessons, it’s the least I can do.”

  She pooh-poohed that notion, telling me I was far from her worst student, but I thought that was the gloss of memory rather than actual truth.

  Later that night, I found Rochester sniffing at the door to the garage and whimpering. I guessed he smelled his mom’s stuff out there, and wanted to go sniff it some more, so I let him out there, making a mental note that I had promised Edith Passis I’d look for copies of her paperwork.

  I sat down to read essays. The first on my pile was Menno Zook’s, which began, “My father had been stealing cows from our neighbors for years before anyone caught him.”

  I’d just gotten hooked by that intriguing beginning when Rochester started barking at the garage door. “Hey, what’s with the noise?” I asked. When I opened the garage door he went right to one box, sniffing and pawing at it. “What’s the matter, one of your toys in there? Come on, you’ve got plenty of toys inside.”

  He wouldn’t budge, even when I grabbed onto his collar and tried to drag him across the concrete floor. “Fine, I give up. Let’s take the box inside and open it up.”

  I carried it to the kitchen table and used a pair of scissors to cut through the heavy packing tape. The legend on the outside of the box identified it as coming from Caroline’s home office. I started lifting out file folders, books, and office equipment, looking for anything that might qualify as Rochester’s toy.
I found a leather business card case, with a stack of her business cards inside, and held it up to him. But that wasn’t what Rochester was after.

  She also had a nice PDA, one of the newer models, and after admiring it I placed it on the table. Rochester went for it, putting his paws up on the table and nosing the PDA around. I held it up for him to sniff, but he just kept pushing it back to me with his nose. “You want me to do something with this?” I asked him.

  I was starting to realize why people talked to their pets, even though I had no expectation that the dog would ever answer me back. Maybe it was a childhood spent watching Mr. Ed on TV. Or maybe it was just my way of communicating with Rochester—he had his ways, like barking and wagging his tail, and I had my own. Together we might come to some satisfying level of interaction.

  In any case, I turned on Caroline’s PDA and started playing with it. I checked her calendar; there was nothing suspicious there, no “meet with shady characters while walking dog.” She had a few dozen listings in her contacts, including my own.

  I resisted the impulse to play one of the games that came with the unit. All that was left was the built-in notepad. There, however, I hit pay dirt. “Where are account statements?” read one entry. Underneath it was “Follow the money,” and beneath that a series of ten numbers with the notation, “Who opened account?”

  I went over to the bookshelf where I’d placed the golden retriever book and paged through to the picture that resembled Rochester, where she’d scribbled what I thought was a telephone number. The sequence of ten digits in Caroline’s PDA matched the set in the margin of the book.

  So it was an account number, not a phone number. But did it relate to her murder? Mindful of what Rick had told me, I hurried over to the telephone to call him, but before I reached it, I stopped short. What did I have? A couple of notes in a PDA, and what might be an account number of some kind.

  I needed to do some more research before I called Rick. Otherwise I would look like an idiot, and this information, if it was important, might end up only as a few lines scrawled in a case file.